The Salesforce Service Cloud Connector enables your support team to communicate with customers in their preferred language by translating case communications and Enhanced Chat messages. While the connector is designed primarily for English-speaking support teams serving global customers, it can be customized to meet your team's specific needs.
Translation is triggered directly within Salesforce in the same view support agents work in, making it easy to use and requiring minimal training for agents to get started.
Translating cases
In Salesforce Service Cloud, a case is a record that tracks a customer's inquiry, issue, or support request. The connector translates both incoming messages from customers and outgoing responses from your support agents, ensuring seamless multilingual communication.
How cases are created
Cases in Salesforce Service Cloud originate from two main sources:
- Web-to-case forms: When a customer submits a web form, it creates a new case in Salesforce Service Cloud.
- Email: When a customer sends an email, it automatically creates a new case or updates an existing one.
How content appears in the case feed
The case feed provides support agents with a threaded view of all communications with the customer:
- Emails automatically appear in the case feed.
- Web form submissions can be configured to appear in the feed using a Salesforce automation. When a case is created via a web form, the customer's message is entered in the case's description field. The Salesforce automation can copy that description into a post, so the message is added to the feed as a post.
What gets translated
The connector translates:
- Emails in the case feed
- Posts in the case feed
- Case fields copied into posts via a Salesforce automation (so they appear in the case feed)
If you need to translate custom case fields or translate case fields and have them stored on the case (without having them appear in the case feed), contact our team to discuss available options based on your use case.
Automatic language detection
When incoming messages appear in the feed, the connector detects the source language using one of two methods:
-
Contact Language Locale: If the customer has a
Contact Language Localefield set in their Salesforce profile, the connector can read that field to determine the source language. -
Smartling Language Detection: If no
Contact Language Localeis set, the connector automatically detects the language using Smartling's language detection service.
Once the user’s language is detected, it is automatically set as the End User Language in the translation settings.
Translating incoming customer messages
When a customer message appears in the case feed, the agent can translate it to understand their inquiry by following these steps:
- Open the case and navigate to the case feed to view all updates.
- Click the Translate button in the Smartling Translation window on the right.
- The connector will translate all untranslated emails and posts in the feed.
The content is translated using Smartling's instant translation service, using your preferred MT or LLM provider and configured settings. The translated version will appear as a sub-email or sub-post directly beneath the customer's original message, allowing agents to reference both the original message and the translated version.
Translating outgoing agent messages
Support agents can translate their responses by following these steps:
- Draft a response in the email editor (the Agent Language is set to English by default; if your team works in a different language, please contact your Smartling representative).
- Wait for the email to save automatically (a "saved" indicator will appear).
- Click the Translate button.
- When the email editor is reopened, the translated version will be displayed.
- Send the translated message to the customer.
The message is translated using Smartling's instant translation service, using your preferred MT or LLM provider and configured settings. After the translated message is sent to the customer, the original version will appear as a sub-email or sub-post directly beneath the translated message, allowing the support agent to reference both versions.
The agent can repeat this process as needed to continue their correspondence with the customer until the case is closed.
Translation options
By default, agents must click the Translate button to initiate translation. However, cases can be configured to translate automatically. Contact our team to learn more about fully automated translation options.
Managing email signatures
Email signatures can be handled in two ways:
- User Profile Signatures: Stored in the agent's profile settings (can be excluded from translation if configured)
- Template Signatures: Stored within email templates (can also be excluded from translation with proper configuration)
Signatures in incoming customer messages are always translated.
Contact our team if you would like to exclude agent signatures from translation.
Working with templates
If your team uses pre-translated email templates that should not be translated, they can be excluded from translation. This is useful when you've already invested in professional translation of standard responses.
Contact our team if you would like to exclude any pre-translated email templates.
Translating chat messages
You can use the connector to translate Enhanced Chat messages for real-time web chat support.
Currently, the connector only supports Enhanced Chat web messages. It does not support Legacy Chat (which Salesforce is retiring in February 2026) or other Salesforce Service Cloud channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS.
If you are interested in translating messages from other channels, contact our team.
How it works
Here's an example of the translation flow:
A customer starts a new conversation and sends a message in their native language.
A support agent picks up the conversation.
The chat window opens, showing two panels:
- The left conversation panel displays the conversation with the customer. This is the standard Salesforce view.
- The right conversation panel is for the support agent and displays all messages with translations (i.e, the original and translated messages). This view is from the Smartling connector.
When the customer sends their first message, the connector automatically detects the source language based on the user’s profile. If no language is set, the connector uses Smartling's language detection service. The message is then translated, using your preferred MT or LLM provider and configured settings.
Below is an example of the agent view. The customer sent a message in German, which was translated into English. The English translation appears in the conversation panel on the right, directly below the customer’s original German message.
The support agent can then reply by typing in the message field or selecting a quick text message in the conversation panel on the right. When the agent clicks the send button, the message is automatically translated, and only the translated message is sent to the customer.
This provides a seamless experience, where the customer only receives replies in their native language. Meanwhile, the support agent can view both the translated and original messages to fully understand what was sent and received.
This view, showing both the original and translated messages, is also available from the Translation tab in the left-side conversation panel.
Manually modify client language
The connector automatically detects the client language based on the customer’s initial message or the language set in their Salesforce profile. However, agents can manually change the client language if the profile language is incorrect or if there is an issue with language detection.
To do this, click the translate icon in the upper-right corner of the right conversation panel. This opens the connector language settings, where you can manually update the client’s language.